John Dehlin

Reflecting on Mormon Stories Achievements

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to this special edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm John Dehlin, your host, and I've created this special podcast for two main reasons. First, I needed to talk to you about the financial status of Mormon Stories, give you an update, and then I wanted to talk to you about many of the exciting things that we have on tap for you for 2011 and beyond. So first, the financial update.

[00:00:27] Several months ago this summer, I kind of made a deal with many of you, my listeners, and the deal was if a bunch of you would sign up on the MormonStories.org webpage to either give one time donations or better yet, to subscribe for monthly donations to help support Mormon Stories financially. I would decline an assistantship in my PhD program and instead use Mormon Stories to help partially fund my graduate school and pay for things like groceries and health insurance and stuff. So we made that bargain.

[00:01:04] Much of you came through. And so for the last, oh, I don't know, six or seven or eight months, I've been doing my best to make good on that promise. We've delivered to you, hopefully a lot of impressive and interesting and valuable podcasts. We started this year in 2010 with 112 episodes. We're now up to 231 episodes on Mormon Stories Podcast, most of those delivered just last year. And we've been able to bring to you all sorts of interesting and hopefully valuable interviews for people like Joanna Brooks, the Danzigs, Sean McCraney, Richard Packham, Damon Smith, Bruce Bastian, Mr. Deity, Teresa Edmonds and Lisa Butterworth, Ed Kimball, Richard Dutcher, Carolyn Pearson, Bill Bradshaw, a bunch of personal friends, etc.

[00:01:58] We think it's been a fabulous year for Mormon Stories and we're really, really grateful for your support. Unfortunately, we're in a bit of a situation, and the situation is that a bunch of you who signed up in July or August to help support Mormon Stories have had to drop off. I've received several emails from those who have dropped off, and in virtually all cases, the people who have dropped off in their support have done so because they've hit financial hard times. Many of them have lost jobs or have gotten in a financial struggle and they're no longer able to make regular contributions to Mormon Stories, but they promise to do so once they get jobs again.

[00:02:38] Anyway, that's left us a little bit struggling without quite the amount of funds that we need to be able to bring this program to you regularly. And so the first thing I need to ask is, is those of you who have been listening to Mormon Stories but have not yet donated. I would like to ask if you would please consider beginning to donate to Mormon Stories. All you have to do is go up to mormonstories.org there are some buttons in the right hand column of Mormon Stories and you can either make one time donations or subscribe for 5, 10, 20, 40, 50 or $100 a month.

Supporting the Podcast and Subscription Options

[00:03:18] The benefit of those monthly subscriptions is basically that they help me plan for how many episodes that I'm going to deliver each month and they help me sort of feel secure that this income is going to last a little bit in the future so that I can make sure and take care of my family. So that's my first request that those of you who benefit from Mormon Stories, who like it, who listen can please sign up and donate and do your part so that I can keep providing this service. And the service that I provide in the future will, will definitely depend on those of you coming through if and when you can.

[00:03:54] Now, I don't want to just ask for money and not offer anything in return. And so I wanted to give you a quick sense for what our vision is for Mormon Stories in the future. First and foremost, many of you will know that we formed a 501 tax exempt nonprofit organization to be the umbrella organization for Mormon Stories. It's called the Open Stories Foundation. We didn't call it Mormon Stories foundation for legal reasons, but with this nonprofit that's enabled it such that all of your donations to Mormon Stories will be tax deductible, we hope that that will encourage you to want to donate.

[00:04:38] But in addition, we did that with the intent of creating a whole new set and host of offerings for 2011 and beyond, again with your support. So in addition to a whole slew of new interviews that we have planned and I should say that these interviews will be based on your feedback. So we sent out a survey, many of you responded to it and we are lining up some of the most amazing interviews we've ever planned for 2011.

[00:05:08] Very exciting. I won't ruin the surprise, but you can expect a very bright future for Mormon Stories Interviews. We have a few other projects in the works that we hope to get going. First is a revamp of the Mormon Matters website. Now many of you may have been followers of mormonmatters.org it's a highly popular and well trafficked blog that's sort of been in revamped for a few months now. We hope to turn Mormon Matters into a Huffington Post for Mormon news and information. Some of you may know that The Mormon Times, published by the Deseret News, tries to offer sort of a centralized news source for Mormonism, which is, we think that the world of Mormonism is much bigger and that there's room in the marketplace for sort of an uncorrelated website for news and information on Mormonism that could cover things like business, politics, entertainment, sports, advice columns, et cetera.

[00:06:07] So we have some really fabulous partners lined up to support us with a revamp of Mormon Matters, and we're going to be looking for people in the coming days and weeks to help us edit that site. So. So we're looking for people who care about Mormon sports, Mormon business, Mormon politics, Mormon entertainment, the blogger knuckle, and other areas of news and information to sign up and support.

[00:06:31] That's the first thing we're going to do. Second thing we hope to do is bring back the Mormon Matters panel podcast. Many of you know that several years ago we brought on regular panels to discuss various topics within Mormonism in a panel format. And we think that there's room on the Internet for sort of a this Week in Mormonism podcast, where basically two or three or four of the main news stories that are generated on Mormon Matters get discussed by a panel of thoughtful people, much like we used to do several years ago.

[00:07:07] So we're going to bring that back with your support, and we think that you'll really enjoy it. We also feel really strongly that there's room in the marketplace for more Mormon themed podcasts. So we have this idea of something like a Mormon Public radio, which is where we sponsor new podcasts that follow various themes. So, for example, we think there's a need for a Mormon Women podcast or Mormon Feminism Podcast that's pretty much specifically dedicated to Mormon women and women's issues within Mormonism. We think that there's a market for a Stay LDS podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping people who need to stay or want to stay in the LDS Church for whatever reason, find a way to make that work if that's their desire.

[00:07:52] And we've been talking with the good folks at Stale DS to make that happen. We also feel like there needs to be an Ex Mormon Stories podcast or Post Mormon Stories podcast, basically dedicated to building support and understanding for people who've chosen to leave the church, because we think that people who stay and leave the church both deserve support and that there's a room for a series of podcasts to help people understand them better. We also feel like the issue of homosexuality within Mormonism deserves its own podcast. A lot of you have enjoyed our coverage of homosexuality.

[00:08:25] Some of you have expressed frustration that we've covered it in such depth. We think that there's room for a podcast dedicated specifically to this as well. So we really like this idea of pulling together a Mormon public radio type set of podcasts, and we're looking for people to collaborate with us on these and other types of Mormon themed podcasts, if any of you are interested. And then finally, we are really interested in pulling together a global community for what I'll call uncorrelated or out of the box Mormons. There are liberal Mormons out there, progressive Mormons. There are single Mormons, gay Mormons, ex Mormons, post Mormons, New Order Mormons, feminist Mormons, intellectual Mormons, all sorts of Mormons out there who likely aren't finding what they need in terms of community and support and information through their regular war channels.

[00:09:26] So we don't intend to replace the church or create a new church, but what we would love to do is create a global community so that people in Atlanta or in Boston or in Chicago or Texas or, you know, California, wherever they are, if they're looking for people who are like them, who can support, provide help and information, think about playgroups, think about book clubs, think about meetups, think about dating groups, maybe even regional conferences.

[00:09:55] We feel like there's a market for pulling together all the many people out there who need additional support for their Mormon experience, ex Mormons and post Mormons included, to be able to support them in coming together. We envision someday EFYS for teens of liberal or post Mormons, especially for youth type things where they get together, get inspired, meet other kids like them, learn morals and values and ethics in sort of a liberal or post Mormon era.

[00:10:26] We see the need for a dating service where single LDS folks or divorced LDS people can find and marry people like them. We see the need for a whole host of online materials to provide parents who are raising their kids as semi believers, or as post Mormons or ex Mormons or as liberal Mormons. There are all sorts of advice and information and support that people need to navigate their marriages, their extended families, etc. So we think that there's a real market for providing online support content, books and podcasts and screencasts and other items of support for people like that. And we even envision someday, you know, annual conferences where we can bring all these types of Mormons together to support and uplift and inspire each other.

[00:11:21] So that is the expansive vision that we're hoping to collaborate with people on starting with the Mormon Stories Podcast and with the Open Stories Foundation. But we would love to team with other websites and communities and organizations that share this vision. It doesn't need to be controlled or owned by us. It can be something we collaborate with under a board of directors. But we hope to reach out with, you know, post Mormons, ex Mormons, New Order Mormons, Sunstone, Dialog, all the various podcasts. Whoever is interested in teaming with us to form a community of support to help produce these podcasts, to help run the Mormon Matters revamp, and to continue delivering exciting Mormon Stories podcasts.

[00:12:09] We're looking for partners and collaborators to make this happen. Hey, it may not happen at all. All this may die. I'm a busy guy getting my PhD in clinical psychology. The podcast in and of itself is sort of a full time job. But this is a vision that I just wanted to lay out there, see if there are people interested, and sort of offer this as collateral for my appeal for donations and support for Mormon Stories podcast. So I'll just ask one more time. First, I'll thank you all for your support. I want to thank Natasha and Dan Witherspoon and Richard and Andrew Ainsworth and all the good people who have helped me produce Mormon Stories over the past year.

Gratitude and Looking Ahead to 2011

[00:12:48] I want to thank all those who have come on to listen to it. And most importantly, I want to thank the listeners and all the people who have supported us financially. And I want to end again with just this final plea that there's a lot of people who need help and support in their journey in and around marginal or uncorrelated Mormonism.

[00:13:10] And if we can band together and support each other and create some exciting community and resources, I really believe that we can bring a lot of joy and alleviate a lot of pain for people who fall on the margins, who are ostracized or who just fall out of the box in some way and are looking for some people like them to work with and to get ideas and tips and tricks. So please consider Supporting us@mormonstories.org Please tell your friends.

[00:13:38] Please email me or go up to MormonStories.org and post your information if you're interested in helping out. And know that I think the coming 40 years for Mormonism can be as exciting and more exciting than they ever have been. Again with your support. So thank you for listening.

[00:13:56] It's been an honor and a privilege to be able to speak to you and with you and to meet all of you. And I look forward to the great things we can do together in the coming years. Take care you. Thank.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.